The death of the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has created political turbulence in the country, with uncertainty over who might now rise to the top in the Islamic republic. While the presidency is not the most powerful position in the country – that is reserved for the supreme leader – it holds significant authority.
Here are three men who hold power in Iran:
Ali Khamenei, supreme leader
Khamenei, aged 85, succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader in 1989 and is a former president of Iran. As Iran’s head of state he is also responsible for the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), long regarded as a key base of his power. Khamenei is officially regarded as a marja’ – or source of religious emulation under Iran’s system of Shia clerical governance despite controversy over his lack of clerical standing at the time he became supreme leader.
The question of who will succeed Khamenei, who has been treated for prostate cancer and has other health issues, has become more pressing in recent years as he had groomed and elevated key loyalists like Raisi, the president who died on Sunday.
Mohammad Mokhber, interim president
Aged 68, Mokhber, who was appointed acting president after Raisi’s death, served as first vice-president. Associated with the hard-line conservative centres of power in Iran, Mokhber is regarded as close to the office of the supreme leader and the IRGC, which represent the two key intersecting focuses of power in the Iranian system of governance.
Before his appointment to the vice-presidency, Mokhber served for 14 years as head of Setad, a wealthy and powerful charitable organisation set up in memory of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and under the direct control of Khamenei.
Both Setad and Mokhber have been sanctioned by the US, accused of human rights violations.
Mojtaba Khameini, son of Ali Khamenei
Aged 54, the supreme leader’s second eldest son is sometimes mentioned as a potential successor to his father. An important figure in the Office of the Supreme Leader, he is seen as a power broker and gatekeeper for his father, with his influence dictated by his proximity to Khamenei.
He has been described as a fixer in some recent presidential elections and appears to be in charge of large sums of funds that saw him sanctioned by the US. The US treasury sanctions notice in 2019 described him as “representing the supreme leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father”, and for his close connections to the IRGC’s Quds Force and the powerful Basij militia.
